


naughty or nice

by aes3plex



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alcohol, Canonical Character Death, Gen, is there a polite way to warn for 'one of the characters is a child in this and later he dies'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:07:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21907210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aes3plex/pseuds/aes3plex
Summary: The boy isn’t loud, but crying always carries.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier & Lt Graham Gore
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16
Collections: 12 Days of Carnivale ~ 2018





	naughty or nice

**Author's Note:**

> This was written & posted on Tumblr for 12 Days of Carnivale 2018.

The boy isn’t loud, but crying always carries.

On his way up the shrouds Francis receives a relieved glance or two: the foremast hands are young men, mostly, and career sailors; a child in tears is beyond them. Beyond Francis, too, really, but Lieutenant Stewart had been adamant: “You have _sisters_ ,” he’d insisted, somewhat desperately.

When he makes the foretop, the boy is standing as he must—one hand behind his back, eyes forward and down. Whatever the offence he has been caught at, the punishment is surely expired hours since. There are teartracks frozen on his cheeks.

“What’s this, then,” Francis says, gently.

“Mr. Crozier, sir,” says the boy, thickly, without raising his eyes.

He is eleven: Francis knows this from the captain’s proud commentary. A year younger than most, and in his father’s ship too: such credentials will be the envy of many when he comes to his exams. The boy does not seem to realize his luck. He will die an admiral, Francis thinks, while men like Francis scrub along on half-pay or Greenwich pensions, until catarrh or cholera collects.

“Do you ever wish you was home,” the boy says, stumbling over it. “Sir,” he says, as an afterthought. Around them the wind is rising: they had best be down soon, and not only for supper. The surge of the North Atlantic arcs them degree by degree across the curve of the world and back: the horizon is a long black unbroken line, the low sun invisible behind a drawn curtain of cloud. Salt in the nose and the mouth and the blood. _No_ , Francis thinks, _never_.

The boy is looking at him, beseeching.

“Come, Graham,” says Francis, “We all wish for silly things sometimes.”

“It’s Christmas tomorrow,” Gore says, almost to himself.

“Aye,” says Francis, and isn’t sure what else is wanted. “We’ll have a time of it, won’t we,” he says, eventually, and puts his hand somewhat awkwardly on the boy’s shoulder.

The boy startles: stares. Then turns, as quick as lightning, and leans: wraps his arms round Francis’s waist and embraces him like a brother, tight, and then darts away, as if he might be struck. Scrubs a hand across his cheek and sniffs: draws himself up.

“Yessir,” he says. “Sorry, sir. Dismissed, sir?” And he’s away before Francis can keep him, down into the slowly darkening ship.

-

In the days after Graham’s death they are all quieter. In _Erebus_ ’s wardroom Crozier pours himself a drink: Fitzjames is telling Fairholme some heroic thirdhand tale of Graham’s dash, no doubt half fiction and half hearsay.

“You knew him well, sir,” says LeVesconte to Crozier, not quite a question. The flat-pan voice of restrained frustration: his eyes on the glass in Crozier’s hand.

“His father,” Crozier says, around the amber burn of whiskey.

“Ah,” says LeVesconte, politely.

**Author's Note:**

> it struck me that crozier and gore probably overlapped on _doterel_ , as a twenty-two-year-old mate and an eleven-year-old volunteer respectively. sorry about this.


End file.
